Internet Technology
Major Funded projects

Useability testing: AussieMOO vs Microsoft NetMeeting

Enhancing information exchange in the rice industry

Program leader:
Mr Ken Eustace

Main thrust:
An integrated research strategy is one of the requirements for success in attracting funding. Identifying the potential strengths, building teams and internal mentoring all help to consolidate the infrastructure to mount a successful research effort. Adequate time and support must now be devoted to increasing the research milestones and output eg refereed journal papers of the Internet Technology program.

Aims:
The aims of the Internet Technology program are to:
• serve as a focus of Information and Internet technology research related to agriculture at Charles Sturt University;

• provide infrastructure and support for research involving Internet technology;

• foster R&D links with industry, NSW Agriculture, CSIRO, research centres, farmer and rural organisations, consultants and other universities;

•· provide opportunities for undergraduate projects and postgraduate research and training.

Main research areas:
The Internet Technology research program has been consolidated into three research units (below) from 1999 to help build a successful research profile. There is a strong synergy between each unit in research and policy development (legal, ethical and best practice issues).
Knowledge technology unit:

Multimedia publishing of research information; online decision support and expert systems - Agricomputing Support Systems (Plant Industries); visual information systems; digital libraries and object publishing environments (SILO Project).

Synchronous communications unit:

Information literacy and online education; AussieMOO and computer-based conferencing (text, audio and video) applications; older people and technology; social and ethical issues for rural and remote Internet users.

Secure transactions unit:

E-commerce and e-catalogue applications, computer security, copyright and protection of intellectual property.

Facilities:
There are a number of distributed facilities within the Farrer Centre, School of Information Studies and SPAN for the support of research in the Internet technology program. These include the following servers (location in brackets):

• Sun Sparc 4 - Farrer Centre WWW server: farrer.riv.csu.edu.au (Farrer Centre)

• WindowsNT workstation for multimedia programming: cobb.riv.csu.edu.au (Farrer Centre)

• HP 400 - SILO WWW server: silo.csu.edu.au (Jack Cross Computer Centre)
• SGI O2 - Visualisation server: tuvix.riv.csu.edu.au (SPAN)

• Commercial WWW site: www.farrer.au.com (Consulting services)

Staff Involved:
Geoff Fellows, Lyn Hay, Ken Eustace, Craig MacDonald, Bob Moore, Barney Dalgarno, Jan Scott, Dr John Weckert, Dr Wayne Moore, Dr Kirsty Williamson. Casual support: James Fellows, Melissa Fellows, Rizwan Ahmad